P.D.Q. Bach - The Musical Sacrifice

Описание: P.D.Q. Bach - The Musical Sacrifice (S. 50% Off)

0:00 - Fuga Meshuga
2:50 - Sort of Little Trio Sonata
6:07 - Three Canons
8:03 - Chorale Prelude: "Da kommt ja der Schurke"
9:52 - Four More Canons
13:13 - The Grossest Fugue

Susan Palma, flute & piccolo
Stephen Taylor, oboe
Gerald Tarack, violin
Lauren Goldstein, bassoon
Early Anderson, trombone
Michael Willens, bass

The idea of this work is either an homage to or stolen from The Musical Offering, one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s last major works, whose thirteen parts are all based on the theme given to Bach by Frederick the Great when Bach visited Potsdam in 1747. The theme, or subject (or theme), of The Grossest Fugue was given to P. D. Q. by a burglar who passed through the composer’s apartment on his way from robbing the house next door; he had taken more than he could carry, and, as he told P. D. Q., he didn’t think his Lattenzaun (“fence”) would give him much for the theme anyway, since it was obviously old and had been used a lot.

Two of the selections of this work are fugues, a musical form that has the reputation of being dry and academic, primarily due to the fact (one suspects) that your average layperson has trouble keeping track of where the subject, or theme (or subject) is; P. D. Q. Bach, however, in what can only be described as a didactic coup, solves this problem in a novel manner that cannot fail to reach even the densest layperson: he simply instructs each performer to stand up whenever he or she is playing the watchamacallit.

Another device employed in this work is canon, which is related to rounds, such as "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." (A round is a particular kind of circular canon; all rounds are canons, but not all canons are rounds. All canons feature strict imitation, which is the sincerest form of strict flattery.) The word "canon" is a corruption of the Spanish word for "canyon," i.e., the second voice to enter is usually lower, or deeper, than the first. You know how sometimes the color comics in the Sunday papers are printed sloppily and the separate colors are not precisely lined up, so you get the same image displaced, in different colors? Well, that's sort of a visual equivalent of the canon.

A chorale prelude is where one part has a well-known melody, and the other parts do fancy things
around it to make up for the fact that the melody is so well known. The chorale used in this instance is the moving "Here Comes the Villain."

In the "Sort of Little Trio Sonata," P.D.Q. Bach, since no keyboard instrument is used in this work, simply doubles the bass line most of the time, letting the larger harmonic implications fall, like chips, where they may.


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